Our friends at Global Forest Coalition and Global Justice Ecology Project have produced a new video entitled A Darker Shade of Green: REDD Alert and the Future of Forests. The 28-minute video documents opposition around the globe to controversial programs that claim to Reduce Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) by putting forests into the carbon market.
By Alicia Tozour
Today, Grassroots International honors International Women’s Day by celebrating the ongoing victories of our partners, grantees and allies in their promotion of a global social movement for women’s rights and climate justice.
By Alicia Tozour
Over the last couple of days official Washington has been abuzz with what President Obama said, and didn't say, about the 1967 borders between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories. The president didn't say anything that hasn't been official U.S. policy under both Republican and Democratic administrations since at least President Carter's time. And, for good measure, nothing different than what the international community has been saying since even before then!
by Stephen R. Shalom
NOTE: the following is an excerpt from an article by Stephen R. Shalom, Jewish professor, writer, and advisory board member of the Israeli Occupation Archive. This article is a slightly edited and footnoted version of remarks delivered at New York University 28 Feb 2011 for Israel Apartheid Week
By Cloc/The Via Campesina
(Cancún, 5 December 2010) One idea dominated the opening and first working day of the global forum “For Life, Environmental and Social Justice”, organized by La Via Campesina and its allies at their camp in Cancún: we must foil the carbon markets and the REDD programme which governments intend to legitimize at COP16.
The below press release from Grassroots International's ally the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) discusses some of the events that were held on Indigenous Peoples' Day. IEN is a network of indigenous peoples who focus on creating sustainable livelihoods, demanding environmental justice, and maintaining indigenous traditions.
The UN’s special rapporteur on the right to food, Olivier de Schutter is interviewed on agro-ecology and other important food-related issues. Results of a recent Essex University study on yield and agro-ecology are highlighted.
With the support of Grassroots International, the Mexican Alliance for the Self-Determination of Peoples (AMAP) sent a small delegation of Indigenous representatives to the Peoples World Conference on Climate Change, held in Cochabamba, Bolivia from April 19-22, 2010. Below is an excerpt from AMAP’s report from the event:
Grassroots International recently joined a growing list of colleagues and food sovereignty activists who have signed an open letter to Oxfam America calling on the organization to take a stance to oppose biotechnology. The action comes following the recent release of a book detailing research commissioned by Oxfam.
Historian, activist, and Grassroots International friend Howard Zinn died January 27 at the age of 87. I remember introducing Grassroots International to Howard when I was Executive Director. He had heard of Grassroots, but he didn’t know much about it. I had just come back from the West Bank. I remember the moment when we bonded. I was trying to describe some indescribable injustice I had witnessed. Someone else who was part of the conversation asked me how I could do this work, wasn’t it just too depressing. I said, “No, it’s inspiring. What’s depressing is when people are oppressed and they can’t or won’t fight back.
The Haitian government has been largely silent since the January 12 earthquake. Publicly, that is. Who knows what officials are saying behind closed doors to international governments and other donors? Citizens don’t. They have heard from President René Préval about his personal losses from the quake – his shirts, his palace - but about little else, least of all about the substance of governmental plans for reconstruction.
This week – a full six weeks after the world-historic-level catastrophe – the Haitian government launched a post-disaster needs assessment (PDNA). The PDNA establishes working groups to assess damages and look at the macro-plan for reconstruction.
The Chicago-based Goldin Institute has been in the forefront of providing research and consultative support to grassroots organizations around the world. They parther with local organizations such as Nijera Kori in Bangladesh -- that have long-established connections to grassroots organizations and movements -- in these efforts. Goldin's Kasia Paprocki recently posted a cautionary note via a blog on HuffPost on some of the solutions being proffered in the rebuilding efforts after the earthquake in Haiti.
Jean Entine
An article I came across recently in the midst of much depressing news around Haiti, and a lot else, was: "Palestinians in Gaza donate to Haiti." It spoke of how Gazans were collecting something -- anything -- to donate to earthquake victims in Haiti. Dr.
The Haitian-American community all over the United states is mobilizing to support their loved ones back in Haiti in the aftermath of the disastrous earthquake that hit last week. Boston's Haitian community has likewise risen to the occasion through forming among other things the Boston-Haiti Health Support Team; and the Association of Haitian Women (AFAB) and Dorchester People for Peace have organized a training session for public health personnel thinking of going to Haiti or offerign sycho-social support to Haitian-American families here -- Hayat Imam.
Hayat Imam is a Board member of Grassroots International and a member of Dorchester People for Peace.
As news of the earthquake that devastated Port-au-Prince trickled out on Tuesday evening, the Haitian Diaspora held its collective breath. At 6 a.m. the next morning I placed an anxious phone call to my father, who left Haiti’s political violence behind for Miami in 2004. He had no news of his sister, brother-in-law, or nieces. By noon, calls and messages alerted me that all my relatives survived unharmed. Seven days after the quake, I realize how truly lucky my family had been. Every single Haitian friend, co-worker, and acquaintance of mine lost someone in the quake.
We picked up the phones as soon as we heard of the earthquake to speak with Haitian partners like Chavannes Jean Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papaye (MPP). Like the thousands of Haitian families in the U.S. trying to find out who was still alive, we quickly found that communication lines were broken or overtaxed. Eerily, our partners’ phones just ring and ring - no answer. In Chavannes’ case, we were able to reach his brother in New York who confirmed that he is still alive. For that we give thanks. But in truth, we are working with very little direct information.
Nitin Sawhney, a friend of Grassroots International and long time activist for Palestinian rights, was one of the 100 delegates, from the over 1300 international delegate-members of the Gaza Freedom March, chosen to go into Gaza through a last minute intervention by Suzanne Mubarak, wife of Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. Nitin, and many of his colleagues including the American activist and Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein decided at the last minute to not go.
